Reuben Fowler wins jazz award

Young trumpeter and composer Reuben Fowler has won this year's Peter Whittingham Jazz Award for promising jazz musicians

Reuben Fowler, a Yorkshire-born trumpeter and composer, has won the Peter Whittingham Jazz Award 2012.

The award is given by the Musicians Benevolent Fund to young jazz musicians who show promise early in their careers, and is intended to provide a helping hand as they start out as professionals.

Fowler, who previously played with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, graduated from the Royal Academy of Music this year. He also won the Kenny Wheeler Jazz Prize this summer for excellence in performance and composition. Of his win, he said: "I am thrilled to have been offered this prestigious award – it is a fantastic opportunity."

Previous winners of the Peter Whittingham Jazz Award include Soweto Kinch, Errollyn Wallen, and Empirical who went on to win the 2010 MOBO award. The award was set up in 1989 by the family of Peter Whittingham who was a pianist and admirer of the likes of Gershwin, Porter and Bernstein. Worth £4,000 plus some career guidance for the winner, it is open to students on full-time jazz courses or in the first couple of years of their professional jazz career.